Soapbox: Marketing must count

In the latest Soapbox, Robert Shaw, director of the Value Based Marketing Forum, looks at how procurement can help marketing with process and skill issues:

"Procurement is well placed to assist and this will remove a heavy burden from marketing, allowing them to concentrate on more creative matters."

He adds that it can inject numeracy, help automate data collection, provide suitable analysis tools, align the marketing budgets and headcount to the commercial objectives, and gain top management agreement on marketing's commercial role.

Do you think process in marketing departments has reached a stage where procurement needs to help out? Is procurement really in a position to convince management of marketing's commercial role?